Business reporter
“Last week, I put 73 hours in. You’re not getting home through the week,” Craig Hoodless says of his job behind the wheel of a truck.
“After a full day’s driving you’re mentally knackered but physically fine. Being a long-distance driver has to be a job you love. You can’t do this job if you don’t like it.”
Mr Hoodless, based in Cumbria in north-west England, is one of the more than 300,000 people employed driving heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) in the UK, and one of millions who do so around the globe.
According to data from Acumen Research and Consulting, the semi and fully autonomous truck market is expected to reach approximately $88bn (£64bn; €74bn) by 2027, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 10.1% between 2020 and 2027.
The technology, experts say, has the potential to revolutionise the $700bn (£500bn; €590bn) a year trucking industry that touches every corner of the global economy – creating new business opportunities and saving companies millions.
“It’s a huge opportunity. The biggest impact ATs (autonomous trucks) will have is cost savings and efficiency,” says Patrick Penfield, a professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University in the US.
“The nice thing about ATs is that they’ll be able to operate 24 hours a day and drive a consistent mileage rate, making trucks safer and more fuel efficient.

• Three quarters of all SUVs sold in the UK are registered to people living in towns and cities

• The largest SUVs are most popular in three London boroughs – Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham, and Westminster

• One in three new private cars bought in these areas is a large SUV. These boroughs also top the league for popularity of most polluting cars by UK sales volume, all of which are SUVs

• The most likely large SUV to be owned by a city driver is the Lexus NX300

He made the accusations in a letter sent today to David Jordan, the BBC’s Director of Editorial Policy and Standards following the broadcast of the report, which was widely condemned on social media as “one-sided”, as we reported on our live blog yesterday. 
The report included Ealing Central & Acton Labour MP Rupa Huq – whose constituency lies in the London Borough of Ealing, and who has been a vocal critic of LTNs being rolled out by the Labour controlled council –insisting that they were a more contentious issue than “air strikes on Syria, Brexit and coronavirus.”

The number of people cycling more than doubled in some parts of Scotland last year as lockdown restrictions led to a drop in road traffic and growing safety confidence.
Campaigners are now calling for increased investment in infrastructure such as designated cycle lanes to sustain the increase and encourage more people swap their cars for commuting by bike.
According to data gathered by Cycling Scotland’s nationwide network of 47 automatic cycle counters, there were 47 per cent more cycling journeys recorded overall between March 23 2020 and March 22 2021, compared to the same period in 2019-2020.
In Girvan, Callander and Dunoon, the number of bike rides rose by more than 100% over the year.

Amanda Sturgeon Sun 4 Apr 2021
Our cities are dominated by glass-faced edifices that overheat like greenhouses then guzzle energy to cool down. Instead, we could have buildings that are intimately connected to the living systems that have evolved with us, that celebrate the human-nature connection that is central to our wellbeing.
As more of us in Australia live in urban areas and our cities grow, bringing nature into our cities is a key part of establishing and rebuilding that connection. As well as bringing beauty into urban environments, we know that people are healthier when they are connected to nature. Research also shows that crime rates decrease in areas with street trees and that property values increase.
Nature knows how to manage flooding and weather events and is more adaptable than many of our engineered systems, yet we refuse to learn from it. As we grapple with changing the way that we live due to climate change, we have an opportunity to learn from both the natural systems and Indigenous cultures that have mastered managing and supporting the diversity of Australia for thousands of years.